Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This government is a big government. It’s got lots of people and lots of money. It’s a big system that operates on a daily basis. Of course, its mission is to deliver programs and services to people. At this point, people are asking for help in trying to take that first step in admitting they do have a problem and they want to sober up. My question is to the Minister of Health and Social Services. What immediate steps is the department taking to support established on-the-land programs? Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Nadli. The honourable Minister of Health and Social Services, Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The department has approved three proposals for on the land. We are going to treat them as pilots so we can do an evaluation of those. That will give us good groundwork needed to work with communities to develop further on-the-land treatment programs. Thank you.
It seems the Minister has stated this is in its infancy stage of trying to flush out a framework in terms of how this will work. How will the Department of Health and Social Services see itself involved in on-the-land programs? Mahsi.
We spend slightly over $6 million in community counselling. A lot of the community counsellors are from the communities that they work in, so they may be involved. The other thing is certainly our involvement would be that we are a funder for the on-the-land treatment program. Where we can assist in other areas, the department is prepared to do that.
From a cost standpoint, can the Minister expect to see 33 different on-the-land programs or will the Minister provide leadership and develop a policy framework to ensure the efficiency of the delivery of the on-the-land programs? Mahsi.
One of our initiatives, through the Aboriginal health and community wellness division, is to develop wellness plans in all of the communities. Within those wellness plans, we are going to determine whether or not an on-the-land treatment program is what that community wants. Once that has been determined, our intention is to try to fund all of the treatment programs that are being proposed over the next couple of years. Money permitting, our intention is to try to fund them. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Nadli.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In terms of cost, what allocation of resources would the department identify as a possible source? Would it consider, with other departments, the possible consideration of revenues from liquor sales? Mahsi.
We would be coming forward through the regulatory process, the business planning process and presenting our full-blown costs for on-the-land treatment to the House. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. The honourable Member for Frame Lake, Ms. Bisaro.
QUESTION 407-17(4):
REPORT OF THE MINISTER’S FORUM ON MENTAL HEALTH AND ADDICTIONS
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are addressed to the Minister of Health and Social Services. I want to follow up on my Member’s statement.
I spoke about the Mental Health and Addictions Action Plan 2012-2015, which was brought forward about a year and a half ago, and then I also spoke about the Minister’s Forum report. I’d like to know from the Minister with regards to the Minister’s Forum report and all the recommendations that are within it, can I get an update on what the department is doing in terms of those recommendations, what kinds of actions are they taking, are they updating the original Mental Health Action Plan or doing something different. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We are not planning on updating the Mental Health and Addictions Action Plan. The Mental Health and Addictions Action Plan is something that is taking us from now to the end of this government. There is no time to update it. Within that action plan, we called for a Minister’s forum and visit with the people to get information from the people on what they think will work in this area. That’s what we’ve done. Thank you.
To the Minister, thanks to the response, but he didn’t really address my question with regards to the recommendations that are in the Minister’s Forum report. There are 67 recommendations in there. What is the Minister doing to put those recommendations into some kind of an action or to take some action on those recommendations? Thank you.
The department in general, we have an Aboriginal community wellness division; we have money that’s being put into addictions from the House. We’ve got some additional funding to address some of the issues that we laid out in one of the two, either the action plan or the recommendations from the forum. We’re moving ahead in areas that we have been talking about for the last several months since we’ve got the forum’s recommendation. We intend to carry them out. I think we’re moving in that direction. It’s a difficult thing to answer what are you doing to carry out. We’re following the plan. Wherever we find the money, we are trying to action things that were recommended by the Minister’s Forum. Thank you.
To the Minister, I guess I’m feeling very puzzled. I’m sure my face looks puzzled. I don’t think that this is a difficult thing to tell us exactly what you are doing. There are 67 recommendations in this report. The Minister says they’re following the plan. Well, I want to know how you’re following the plan. There is any number of things in there that could be done sooner than other things in there.
Can the Minister give me some indication of two or three things they are trying to do first before they do the other 63 or 64?
The first set of recommendations, the most prominent set of recommendations were around treatment on the land. So we are developing a treatment on-the-land program with the communities. We are receiving recommendations from those communities. We are proposing to run some of those recommendations or proposals as pilot programs. We are trying to develop a youth treatment program. Like I said, there’s a consultation process in Fort Simpson where we’re trying to develop an on-the-land youth program. We’re looking to other jurisdictions to see what they’re doing with mobile treatment, I think. Those are the top three recommendations, so we’re moving on those things. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Final, short supplementary, Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. That certainly helps. I thank the Minister for that explanation, but it sounds as though we’re starting with recommendation number one and working our way down to number 67. That’s a concern for me. Number 67 says, “Establish an advisory board with regional representation to oversee the implementation of the forum’s recommendations…provide annual reports,” et cetera. So can the Minister tell me if this advisory board is something that is on the radar within the next short time period, or is it going to be one we’ve done from number one to 66 and then we do 67? Thank you.
Thank you. No, we’re not doing it chronologically. What we’re doing is we’re trying to address what we consider to be top priorities. The recommendations to debrief the Minister’s Forum, we have talked about putting a group of people together. That group of individuals may actually have met, but I’m not 100 percent sure, so I wouldn’t say that here in the House. But we’ve talked with individuals that could work on debriefing the Minister’s Forum, so we’re approaching this. We’re not going to do it chronologically, for sure, I can assure the Member of that, but we are trying to get through all of them. We didn’t ask for recommendations so we could shelve them, like has been said before.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.
